Meet Mark

Let me introduce myself. My name is Mark Sisson. I’m 63 years young. I live and work in Malibu, California. In a past life I was a professional marathoner and triathlete. Now my life goal is to help 100 million people get healthy. I started this blog in 2006 to empower people to take full responsibility for their own health and enjoyment of life by investigating, discussing, and critically rethinking everything we’ve assumed to be true about health and wellness...

New Primal Blueprint Podcasts

Health Coach Radio is live! If you’re a health coach looking for tips, advice, and science-based insight on your profession—or are curious about joining the industry—you’ll love it. Episode 0 lays out what it’s all about, what you can expect from future episodes. I appear on Episode 1 to give my predictions about health coaching in the coming years and explore what it takes to start your own business. Check it out.

Each week, select Mark’s Daily Apple blog posts are prepared as Primal Blueprint Podcasts. Need to catch up on reading, but don’t have the time? Prefer to listen to articles while on the go? Check out the new blog post podcasts below, and subscribe to the Primal Blueprint Podcast here so you never miss an episode.

No one thrives long term on a vegan diet. All of the long term vegan gurus secretly eat animal products, mostly salmon from a supplier of wild-caught salmon in Alaska. They dare not admit it because of the attacks and death threats they would receive. Tim Shieff is courageous to come out in the open.

As a former vegan, I have nothing but compassion for Tim Shieff. The backlash happens whenever a big name vegan just can’t do it anymore. Remember “Supersize Me”? Alex Jamieson also left veganism not long after that. Similar bully tactics were used. Leaving veganism is like leaving a cult. I’m sure Robb Wolff would have something to say about this subject too.

I have this morbid habit of collecting videos of vegans who have quit. Men usually say they were getting mentally messed up. One guy said he was becoming psychotic, seeing things, agoraphobia, panic, etc. I don’t doubt it. It shows in women as achy/tired and then liver issues. Usually. People are different, but those are the most common. I wish someone would study it.

I’m not surprised about the 4 vs 5 day workweek. Working four 10s is exhausting and there’s little benefit for the worker unless it means they cut out a long commute. What we should really study is the effects of a 30- or 35-hour workweek. I suspect that productivity would not decline too much if we cut down to 35 hours.

I work 3-12 hour shifts as a nurse, and it absolutely sucks. I wake up at 4am so I have quiet time and meditation but honestly, I don’t get home until 8 pm or after. By the time I fix my lunch (and dinner) for the next day, get all my supplements ready, it’s 9:30 before I get to bed. If I fall asleep by 10, that’s 6 hours of sleep, and then I have to do it all over again. Where’s the time to work out? I’ve done that too….getting to the gym by 5am but it’s so exhausting. Sure, I have 4 days off, but I think the amount of time I need to recover is not worth it. It sucks. I don’t know if other nurses feel the same way.

I have been using opiod pain medication as prescribed for chronic pain for years. It’s not perfect but my life would be even more hellish without it. This guy may think he’s doing a good thing but some people respond to these drugs and only these drugs. He needs to develop something better, not take away what little tools we have.

I second this. Some people need opioid meds. It’s a medical need, not an opportunity for pundits to signal their compliance with mainstream thinking. I took opiates for daily unremitting pain for move than 10 years. I found out I was Celiac and most of my pain disappeared when gluten disappeared from my life. I have the courage to admit I took them only because I no longer do. It’s dangerous to admit it. People may dismiss you, shame you, and others might plan to rob you. We should respect those willing to speak up.

Not everyone will have a discovery like I did (about gluten causing my pain) in their life. I count myself extremely lucky. And I don’t think we should shame people for a medical need. There’s nothing shameful about pain/hurt. This lack of compassion will just drive more illicit drug seeking as more real patients are pushed out of the system.

No offense Harry, but your 6 week class doesn’t invalidate my experience, or the experience of many other people, nor does it mean that grandma should suffer with arthritis because of anybody’s beliefs or what they think they know. People shouldn’t be made to suffer for ideologies.

And pain meds weren’t designed for short term use. I don’t know how such ideas begin. It’s an absurd idea to designate a drug “for short term use” when pain can be unremitting. Denying medicine to people who need it is a violation of human rights when a despotic government does it. And here we are discussing it as if it’s ok in the “civilized” world. Just because you can’t see me hurting, doesn’t mean I won’t lose my job because you shamed my doctor into letting me suffer.

Have you listened to this interview?
This is taken from an interview Rhonda Patrick, Found My Fitness, did with Matthew Walker, PH.D. Professor at UC Berkeley author or “Why We Sleep”. Fascinating interview!

“We have not been able to discover a single psychiatric condition in which sleep is normal.” – Matthew Walker, Ph.D. CLICK TO TWEET
Another, somewhat troubling, consequence of sleep deprivation is that it triggers the onset of a “loneliness phenotype.” Lack of sleep induces critical changes within the brain, altering behavior and emotions, while also disturbing essential metabolic processes and influencing the expression of immune-related genes. The end result is that people who are sleep-deprived avoid social interaction. This asocial profile is recognizable by other people, who, in turn, shun the sleep-deprived people in a psychosocial loop that perpetuates in a vicious cycle of loneliness and other mental health disorders.

Hi Mark, thanks for the article today on dealing with injuries. Dr. Mercola had a similar article recently and this is what I posted on his website a few days ago:

I found this article disappointing because it mentioned nothing about the value of HGH (Human Growth Hormone). I’ve been recovering from injuries for over a year and just recently learned about it. I had read much about the value of nutrients for injury recovery and so I’ve been stuffing my body with large amounts all all kinds of nutrients for over a year and had pretty much nothing to show for it in terms of healing and recovery. Then I learned that eating meals with either carbs or protein, especially in the evening, spikes your insulin which in turn suppresses the release of HGH during the night. So all this time of stuffing myself with every possible nutrient I was actually preventing my body from healing! Now I’m doing intermittent fasting which increases the release of HGH and I’m doing much better. Any doctor that doesn’t check and advise on one’s eating patterns and the effect on the natural release of HGH is missing the boat. I’m not even sure a person’s injuries can heal without a healthy natural release of HGH regardless of all the nutrients they stuff themselves with! Check out this website: http://www.healthline.com/…/11-ways-to-increase-hgh

So Mark I liked your comments about adding additional protein after an injury. What I’m curious about is how best to use extra protein and nutrients while simultaneously enhancing the release of HGH rather than suppressing it. My current approach is to only eat one meal a day and this at breakfast so I get nutrients and protein but then it shouldn’t suppress HGH at night. But I’d like to here more informed views. Thanks again.

Interesting observation on protein needs and training in Sunday with Sisson – general consensus is that older folks need more protein as they age but maybe that’s because they are less active and not simlply a result of aging.

I am responding to the Sunday with Sisson blog on working out with an injury. I severely broke my right arm last November when is slipped on wet (probably out of code) cement while walking. It was so bad they had to manipulate the bones back into place – on my dominant hand. I avoided surgery. And I immediately upped my homemade bone broth intake and collagen. I took a mentally positive approach even though it sometimes feels more natural to scare myself and get grumpy. I apologized to my arm for having to deal with all of it. After all, I had to stop working for quite a while. I couldn’t rotate my wrist and I could t sleep with the cast. It was hard to drive and eat and dress and shower. Everything took way longer and I was clumsy. I got the flu. Yet I kept working out and moving however I could. I concentrated on legs and my healthy arm at the gym. I did the trainer. I walked (not on cement.) jogging hurt the selling so I let that go for a while. I do my squats and planks on my elbows. I try to fill my Apple Watch activity ring too. Movement helps me destress and I feel better. In a world where there’s this struggle to work out and move, I feel more struggle when I don’t. I have religiously done my physical therapy even though it hurt like hell. My first bone break after all. I just waited until later in life! And guess what, I have healed so fast. Only 5 weeks in a cast. I am close to having full range of motion back 3 months later. I will not stop and my next goal is to safely do my push-ups and pull-ups again. Thank you for this post, Mark! Michelle

A good day starts by naturally waking up with vigor, ready to go. Literally, a nice deuce followed by 16oz of water then mentally envisioning my day. Those days I can readily handle whatever life has to offer.

Can’t not use my arms in my line of work but I will use a TENS unit when offwork to fairly good results. Both shoulders need a cleaning, the right one needs it again.

I’ve found that ignoring the amount of time you’re supposed to use the unit and simply using it for as many hours a day as possible really helped me, not only in stimulating blood around affected areas but also in building muscle in those areas.

When I saw the unit advertised to give you six pack abs I had no doubt it would work even though I don’t feel the need for them. About the only people really looking at a trucker are the badged highwaymen looking to take whatever you have.

Hi Mark,
I fully agree with you on injuries. I had a twisted knee anda after visiting hospital i came back with a knee- brace which i was very happy with because i have two French shepard dogs!!! This was the 2-nd day of our winter holiday… but i did walk every day with beace and cruches. Even did a big walk hill up to a waterfall, slowly. After i came home i had a knee surgery. After the first control i a my docter advised to cycle. I asked when and howmuch. She said to build it but critical is: pain! So i quit my painkillers and did twice a day my cycling on a spinningbike. Great exercize for knees to recover.
Keep the muscles trained as good as you can!

Hi Mark, i’ve Found also over the years of training and getting injured, is not to completely stop, but to key down my exercise routine and make a conscious effort to not overwork the injured area. To stop and do nothing is not doing the body any favours. Thanks for the interesting blogs.

Regarding training through injuries and surgeries… I think it speeds recovery! Just do it carefully and selectively. I usually waited about 3 days, got off of all pain meds, and trained whatever parts of my body weren’t injured. When I broke my arm my trainer jokingly said I was going to look like Popeye training only one arm. I didn’t, and I worked the broken arm per the PT, then with kettlebells and it was back in no time.

I’ve trained (kettlebells) through foot surgery on both feet (one at a time, flat food & bunion surgery that involved cutting the large bone and splicing it together), a broken arm, meniscus surgery (both knees, one at a time) and two breast cancers. I had radiation with the second breast cancer, and that slowed me down, both in terms of when I started training again and how much I could do.

If training with a foot, knee, leg injury, try sitting on a 5 gallon plastic can, preferably with a pillow on top to cushion it. You can do a number of things, including snatches, clean & jerks, and sling shots.

I’ve had many injuries over the years from working out, and I guess the most important thing I’ve learned is to never stop doing something. Two years ago I injured my neck, in which I had severe nerve pain and weakness down my left arm. The muscles in my left shoulder (including the muscles of my scapula and pecs) were so clamped down, I could hardly function. I immediately went to a directional non-force chiropractor and massage therapy focusing on trigger point therapy. I used essential oils (topical, internal, and diffusing); ice and heat; physical therapy; bone broth and collagen; turmeric-ginger lemonade and tea. I walked my dog a lot, did the PT exercises, and concentrated on getting better. I was off work for a month (I went back 4 weeks to the day), and through consistent training, I’ve got my arm strength back. It was difficult, no doubt, but I’m grateful I didn’t give up.